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This involves groups of students rotating around different stations and using the stimulus at the station to structure a discussion. It is usually carried out using large sheets of paper, however you could also use a musical extract on a laptop, an image or a problem to solve. Each group is given a few minutes at each station before moving on to the next. They write down what they have discussed at each station and evaluate the comments made by others as they tour around the different stations. If they disagree with a comment they can question it or discuss it within their group.
An example of this could be properties of angles where the children will list the properties or even draw an example of an angle at each station. The finished sheets can then be discussed as a class.
This is a really useful formative assessment tool, as the teacher can tour around to listen/read the students' ideas and therefore identify common misconceptions or existing skill levels across the whole class in order to then adjust the teaching accordingly. Sheets of paper could also be collected in at the end to use to inform the content of the next lesson.
To develop and challenge the students further, see Jennie Long's article about Silent Debates in the recent edition of 'Innovate' - the students tour around the stations but can only write their answers, not discuss, so this promotes the involvement and focus of individual students really well.
Wednesday 18 September 2013
Pupils make mistakes: a great opportunity to advance the learning process and promote resilience
Mistakes don’t have to be negative experiences – they provide an opportunity for open questioning and dialogue through which teachers can explore misconceptions and misunderstandings without making pupils feel deflated, says Claire Whewell
During a recent lesson observation I watched a student teacher carry out a brainstorm activity with a whole class around forms of renewable energy. On the surface we know that this can be an active and effective pedagogic strategy, and indeed ‘wait time' was used very effectively - not an easy or comfortable thing to do as a teacher, let alone as a new teacher. However, this young teacher already had the answers that he was looking for in his head and so he developed a strategy of scanning the room, taking answers from the learners but only writing up those answers that he perceived as ‘correct'.
Clearly he had decided upon the answers that he was looking for at the planning stage of the lesson and therefore ignored the rest of the suggestions made by pupils. Those answers, in other words, that he considered incorrect. Here was a lost opportunity. A discussion around each and every one of the answers provided would have opened up a fascinating dialogue about our perceptions of forms of renewable energies. Not only would this have allowed the teacher to understand more about the pupils' knowledge levels, but it would also have allowed a shared understanding among the class as a whole as they unpacked and explored the reasons for all of the different answers. Additionally, it would have allowed all of the learners in the class to feel that their input was valued.
Eisner (1996: 6) writes: ‘teaching is the only profession I can think of in which professional socialization begins at age five. As a result, those who teach have had years to internalise a set of expectations regarding what teachers do and what schools are like.'
Unfortunately for us as educators, these often implicit expectations can result in the development of bad practice as well as good. It is all too easy, particularly under the complex range of pressures in the classroom and school, to default to pedagogic practices based on rote learning that are ‘safe' options but which do not always allow learners the space to think and therefore develop thinking and learning at a deeper, meta level. Often this is because we feel, as teachers, the pressure to cover curriculum content for formal examination in a culture of accountability, and this in turn discourages pedagogic creativity in our classrooms. Dewey, in his text entitled How We Think, which was originally published in 1910, puts it nicely when he states (1991: 50)
‘Is this right?' comes to mean ‘will this answer or process satisfy the teacher?' - instead of meaning, ‘Does it satisfy the inherent conditions of the problem?' It would be folly to deny the legitimacy or the value of the study of human nature that children carry on in school; but it is obviously undesirable that their chief intellectual problem should be that of producing an answer approved by the teacher, and their standard of success be successful adaptation to the requirements of another.
In this article I hope to consider the role of mistakes, myths, misconceptions or errors in the pedagogic process. While many of us are comfortable with the notion of ‘wait time' and other assessment for learning strategies in the classroom, we need to think more critically about how we use these approaches and the learning spaces that they create for learners in developing their thinking. We still live in a society where making mistakes is considered a bad thing. In this article I hope to explore how we might use such mistakes, not as a negative experience but as a positive pedagogic tool to be used in the classroom. As teachers it is important to challenge the notion that mistakes should be glossed or passed over without consideration.
Optimal learning
Theory, research and indeed our own experiences as teachers tell us that learners are not passive. They need their learning to be active, exciting and challenging (Carnell and Lodge 2002). As part of this we need to engage more reflectively with how we use mistakes, errors, myths, misconceptions - or whatever you wish to call them - in our teaching. Donaldson (1978: 107) on developing the thinking of Piaget suggested that ‘it is also quite clear that error can play a highly constructive role in the development of thinking. It is now well established that the advent of error can be a sign of progress...'
More recent research (Thurston et al 2010) suggests that there is in fact an optimal level of error correction that promotes attainment in paired reading. Indeed, the error correction process between tutor and tutee was seen as central to the paired reading process being successful. The results of the research built upon the work of Vygotsky, where within the zone of proximal development the authors proposed that there was in fact a zone of optimal development, which, in the case of paired reading, in the age group studied, was roughly one mistake every two minutes.
This rate of error-making provides the best conditions under which learning takes place. Clearly then, errors or ‘mistakes' can be central to learning, indeed they can lead to ‘optimal' learning, if used effectively as part of the learning process. Furthermore, Thurston et al (2010) argue that the role of dialogue between the tutor and tutee is important to the cognitive development of the learners involved, although the balance between the cognitive and the metacognitve is an important feature with the optimum space for talk taking place being once every six minutes.
For many years research has suggested just this, that errors or mistakes in fact aid the metacognitve process. Therefore the role of dialogue in exploring and unpacking errors becomes part of the process of learning here. If we return to the lesson observation from the start of this article, there is an example of this. During the course of the brainstorming activity one pupil put their hand up and suggested ‘wood' as an answer, to which the student teacher wrote up ‘biomass' on the board.
My temptation would have been to stop and open up the discussion here. Why did the pupil give the answer of ‘wood'? Would a follow-up question to this have been useful for the learning during the lesson? Why did the teacher write up ‘biomass'? Would the learners in the class have made the connection? Would there even have been agreement in the class about biomass and renewable energies? This interchange took a matter of seconds and yet the development of further discussion around the answer would have been of great benefit to the class. David Tripp in his discussions of critical incidents in teaching would, I suspect, choose a moment such as this to unpack. In many respects it was simply a passing moment in a geography lesson, and yet, the potential of learning for the class was lost.
In relation to this Donaldson (1978) goes on to note that we need to consider how we allow learners to identify and learn from mistakes without feeling deflated and withdrawing from learning experiences. The research mentioned above (Thurston et al 2010) saw little attainment gain in same-aged peer reading pairs, and there are a number of reasons suggested for this, some of which are to do with trust and self-image in front of peer groups. In our roles as teachers it is important not to allow learners to feel this sense of failure but rather to highlight the value and positive use of making mistakes through our exploration of issues through dialogue, and in particular, open questioning.
Allowing dialogue in a learning environment can sometimes become problematic for us as teachers and this is often because of our implicit baggage, of what we think learning should look like, sound like and feel like. If you have never asked yourself this question about learning it is well worth taking a few moments to think about it.
Gladwell (2009) draws upon the work of American psychologist Wagner who suggests that when we evaluate schooling the emphasis is often on working by yourself; the moment you start to work with others it is often perceived as cheating - who owns the work? Who gets the grade? We know from experience that learners often feel nervous about this, particularly around formally assessed work. And yet, once out in the working environment, the ability to work with others becomes central to our success as work colleagues. So, as adults we need the ability to be creative and critical, to work with others to solve problems, but these are not always skills engendered in formal schooling.
Making risk-taking feel safe
Carnell and Lodge (2002) talk about the need for a learning environment in which risk-taking feels safe. They argue that it is not always up to the teacher to be responsible for the learning that takes place but that they should, as teachers, enable learning to happen in a co-constructivist manner and therefore take responsibility to manage the learning in a way which is shared with the learners themselves. We all learn in the classroom, teachers and pupils alike. Being allowed to make mistakes, and to learn from these is an important part of risk-taking. If, as learners, we cannot make mistakes and learn to take risks we withdraw from the learning process as a social and dialogic process and this can lead to a deepening of misunderstandings and even failure. In other words, the potential for cognitive and meta-cognitive development becomes lost.
This in itself is not insignificant. Gladwell (2009), in considering why people fail, draws upon the work of Steele and Aronson, whose work has resulted in the notion of a ‘stereotype threat'. Put simply, when learners are directly faced with a stereotype about the cultural or socioeconomic group that they belong to and the notions of intelligence attached to such a stereotype, the pressure that this produces results in performance suffering. This is not such a new notion. Remember the 1968 work by Rosenthal and Jacobson entitled Pygmalion in the Classroom, which considered the effects of teacher expectations on student performance. As a learner, feeling that your answers are wrong, or are being ignored could lead to significant issues for the learner around their own identities in the classroom.
So errors, or mistakes, can be central to learning, if allowed. That means the effectiveness of mistakes or errors as a learning process depends upon how a teacher handles mistakes within the learning cycle (Donaldson 1978).
The dangers of rewards
This is where many educationalists have highlighted the danger of using a rewards system with learners simply because of the impact that not gaining a reward can have. Learners are very perceptive - they often know where they stand in terms of attainment in a class, indeed my own research as a PGCE student showed that learners could rank the pupils in a class blindly as accurately as the teacher could using class records. Often a rewards system can simply enhance and externalise this for them. In other words, the ‘right' or ‘correct' answers are rewarded while mistakes are often not. And yet, the deeper learning in a lesson often comes from unpacking and exploring the myths and errors made. For learners these experiences of what is right and what is wrong often become embedded.
I remember learning French at the age of 10 and being reprimanded publically in front of the class for being ‘a fool' because, in a dictation exercise, I had spelt Paris as ‘Paree'. Simply put, the error had occurred because this was how I had heard the city being pronounced in the dictation and therefore I had spelt it phonetically. Now I know that it was an error - but was it such a bad error? After all I did learn from it. I've never forgotten than incident, I've never forgotten the teacher; I can even see the weather outside the window and smell the classroom, the chalkboard, and the wooden desks. So, at the end of the day I learnt from that mistake. Although in this case the received curriculum was not simply about how to spell Paris but also how I felt when made to feel stupid in front of my peers.
Using open questions
Where we see good practice teachers often pick up on mistakes made in class and use open, rather than closed, questioning to explore where misconceptions or misunderstanding might have arisen. This immediate checking, or opening up of a dialogue around the issue, provides the space to explore understanding especially around factual misunderstanding. Using open questions in this situation can often be beneficial and as a young teacher myself I used to remind myself of the open questions to ask through the famous Kipling poem that beings:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
As these questions are so open they can allow an exploration of issues that need to be unpacked with learners in terms of their understanding of key concepts and issues. What is biomass? Why is wood a biomass? Why might biomass be considered a renewable energy? How do we define renewable energy? This questioning should take place more immediately within the classroom context and the activity being undertaken. What is more, this more open form of questioning would support Bloom's taxonomy in that it promotes deeper exploration, evaluation and criticality rather than simple factual recall. Which we know is essential for learners in terms of more critical and independent thought.
Research is starting to show, though, that it is when a learner reflects and connects at a later stage, maybe in the learning environment, or elsewhere, that cognitive reflection can take place and embed still deeper learning. Sometimes this is simply where a connection can be made to experience and life events, for example, seeing a news item around renewable forms of energy. Once again, the use of debriefing processes, including the errors involved, is a useful strategy here. Pupils can even use the questions above to reflect upon their own learning and to identify next steps. There is little use in getting eight out of 10 and being pleased with a good score if you are unsure about what happened to the other two marks. Those two marks presumably being errors or mistakes, whether these are technically, factually or simply through omission. Learning is not always immediate and can take time to embed.
Finally, it is worth considering that over the longer timescale there is deeper, higher-order thinking that can develop over a time span of lifelong learning. In my early forties I continue to return to the messages about life in novels such as To Kill a Mocking Bird or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. Often these novels can allow for cross-curricular work that allows learners to explore far more complex misconceptions and myths about life, society and community. These issues often take far longer to explore and unpack as they are tied up so deeply with values, attitudes and beliefs. However, as life experiences take us through a series of ups and downs, successes and failures, they can be an important basis for reflection. We all need to accept that mistakes are part of life's rich tapestry and that we need to accept and learn from them rather than allowing them to become a burden for us to carry.
To end we return to Eisner (1996:6) who completes the quotation at the start of the article by stating that ‘to bring about significant changes in schools requires, among other things, changing the images that teachers hold of their work.' We need to remind ourselves from time to time that teaching is a complex art form. None of us are perfect; we all make ‘mistakes' on different levels. We are human after all. Maybe we simply need to remind ourselves to take more time out to use these as active learning experiences in the classroom to aid deeper cognitive development among our learners, and indeed ourselves. We all make mistakes, a fundamental one being that we do not always see errors as the building blocks of the learning process. Be brave! Next time you pick up on an error or mistake in class think about stopping and taking the time to explore and unpack the reasoning behind the answer. In a safe learning environment where active and deep thinking is encouraged this can only lead to positive outcomes.
Claire Whewell is director of learning and teaching at the Stirling Institute of Education, University of Stirling
Further reading
•Carnell, E and Lodge, C (2002) Supporting Effective Learning, Paul Chapman Publishing: London
•Donaldson, M (1978) Children’s Minds, Fontana Press: London
•Eisner, EW (1996) Cognition and Curriculum Reconsidered, Paul Chapman Publishing: London
•Gladwell, M (2009) What the Dog Saw Penguin: London
•Thurston, A, Merrell, C, Tymms, P and Topping, KJ (2010) ‘Implementation Processes and Reading Attainment Outcomes from a Cluster-Randomized Trial of Paired Reading’ paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Gathering, Denver, CO, USA, 30 April-4 May 2010
During a recent lesson observation I watched a student teacher carry out a brainstorm activity with a whole class around forms of renewable energy. On the surface we know that this can be an active and effective pedagogic strategy, and indeed ‘wait time' was used very effectively - not an easy or comfortable thing to do as a teacher, let alone as a new teacher. However, this young teacher already had the answers that he was looking for in his head and so he developed a strategy of scanning the room, taking answers from the learners but only writing up those answers that he perceived as ‘correct'.
Clearly he had decided upon the answers that he was looking for at the planning stage of the lesson and therefore ignored the rest of the suggestions made by pupils. Those answers, in other words, that he considered incorrect. Here was a lost opportunity. A discussion around each and every one of the answers provided would have opened up a fascinating dialogue about our perceptions of forms of renewable energies. Not only would this have allowed the teacher to understand more about the pupils' knowledge levels, but it would also have allowed a shared understanding among the class as a whole as they unpacked and explored the reasons for all of the different answers. Additionally, it would have allowed all of the learners in the class to feel that their input was valued.
Eisner (1996: 6) writes: ‘teaching is the only profession I can think of in which professional socialization begins at age five. As a result, those who teach have had years to internalise a set of expectations regarding what teachers do and what schools are like.'
Unfortunately for us as educators, these often implicit expectations can result in the development of bad practice as well as good. It is all too easy, particularly under the complex range of pressures in the classroom and school, to default to pedagogic practices based on rote learning that are ‘safe' options but which do not always allow learners the space to think and therefore develop thinking and learning at a deeper, meta level. Often this is because we feel, as teachers, the pressure to cover curriculum content for formal examination in a culture of accountability, and this in turn discourages pedagogic creativity in our classrooms. Dewey, in his text entitled How We Think, which was originally published in 1910, puts it nicely when he states (1991: 50)
‘Is this right?' comes to mean ‘will this answer or process satisfy the teacher?' - instead of meaning, ‘Does it satisfy the inherent conditions of the problem?' It would be folly to deny the legitimacy or the value of the study of human nature that children carry on in school; but it is obviously undesirable that their chief intellectual problem should be that of producing an answer approved by the teacher, and their standard of success be successful adaptation to the requirements of another.
In this article I hope to consider the role of mistakes, myths, misconceptions or errors in the pedagogic process. While many of us are comfortable with the notion of ‘wait time' and other assessment for learning strategies in the classroom, we need to think more critically about how we use these approaches and the learning spaces that they create for learners in developing their thinking. We still live in a society where making mistakes is considered a bad thing. In this article I hope to explore how we might use such mistakes, not as a negative experience but as a positive pedagogic tool to be used in the classroom. As teachers it is important to challenge the notion that mistakes should be glossed or passed over without consideration.
Optimal learning
Theory, research and indeed our own experiences as teachers tell us that learners are not passive. They need their learning to be active, exciting and challenging (Carnell and Lodge 2002). As part of this we need to engage more reflectively with how we use mistakes, errors, myths, misconceptions - or whatever you wish to call them - in our teaching. Donaldson (1978: 107) on developing the thinking of Piaget suggested that ‘it is also quite clear that error can play a highly constructive role in the development of thinking. It is now well established that the advent of error can be a sign of progress...'
More recent research (Thurston et al 2010) suggests that there is in fact an optimal level of error correction that promotes attainment in paired reading. Indeed, the error correction process between tutor and tutee was seen as central to the paired reading process being successful. The results of the research built upon the work of Vygotsky, where within the zone of proximal development the authors proposed that there was in fact a zone of optimal development, which, in the case of paired reading, in the age group studied, was roughly one mistake every two minutes.
This rate of error-making provides the best conditions under which learning takes place. Clearly then, errors or ‘mistakes' can be central to learning, indeed they can lead to ‘optimal' learning, if used effectively as part of the learning process. Furthermore, Thurston et al (2010) argue that the role of dialogue between the tutor and tutee is important to the cognitive development of the learners involved, although the balance between the cognitive and the metacognitve is an important feature with the optimum space for talk taking place being once every six minutes.
For many years research has suggested just this, that errors or mistakes in fact aid the metacognitve process. Therefore the role of dialogue in exploring and unpacking errors becomes part of the process of learning here. If we return to the lesson observation from the start of this article, there is an example of this. During the course of the brainstorming activity one pupil put their hand up and suggested ‘wood' as an answer, to which the student teacher wrote up ‘biomass' on the board.
My temptation would have been to stop and open up the discussion here. Why did the pupil give the answer of ‘wood'? Would a follow-up question to this have been useful for the learning during the lesson? Why did the teacher write up ‘biomass'? Would the learners in the class have made the connection? Would there even have been agreement in the class about biomass and renewable energies? This interchange took a matter of seconds and yet the development of further discussion around the answer would have been of great benefit to the class. David Tripp in his discussions of critical incidents in teaching would, I suspect, choose a moment such as this to unpack. In many respects it was simply a passing moment in a geography lesson, and yet, the potential of learning for the class was lost.
In relation to this Donaldson (1978) goes on to note that we need to consider how we allow learners to identify and learn from mistakes without feeling deflated and withdrawing from learning experiences. The research mentioned above (Thurston et al 2010) saw little attainment gain in same-aged peer reading pairs, and there are a number of reasons suggested for this, some of which are to do with trust and self-image in front of peer groups. In our roles as teachers it is important not to allow learners to feel this sense of failure but rather to highlight the value and positive use of making mistakes through our exploration of issues through dialogue, and in particular, open questioning.
Allowing dialogue in a learning environment can sometimes become problematic for us as teachers and this is often because of our implicit baggage, of what we think learning should look like, sound like and feel like. If you have never asked yourself this question about learning it is well worth taking a few moments to think about it.
Gladwell (2009) draws upon the work of American psychologist Wagner who suggests that when we evaluate schooling the emphasis is often on working by yourself; the moment you start to work with others it is often perceived as cheating - who owns the work? Who gets the grade? We know from experience that learners often feel nervous about this, particularly around formally assessed work. And yet, once out in the working environment, the ability to work with others becomes central to our success as work colleagues. So, as adults we need the ability to be creative and critical, to work with others to solve problems, but these are not always skills engendered in formal schooling.
Making risk-taking feel safe
Carnell and Lodge (2002) talk about the need for a learning environment in which risk-taking feels safe. They argue that it is not always up to the teacher to be responsible for the learning that takes place but that they should, as teachers, enable learning to happen in a co-constructivist manner and therefore take responsibility to manage the learning in a way which is shared with the learners themselves. We all learn in the classroom, teachers and pupils alike. Being allowed to make mistakes, and to learn from these is an important part of risk-taking. If, as learners, we cannot make mistakes and learn to take risks we withdraw from the learning process as a social and dialogic process and this can lead to a deepening of misunderstandings and even failure. In other words, the potential for cognitive and meta-cognitive development becomes lost.
This in itself is not insignificant. Gladwell (2009), in considering why people fail, draws upon the work of Steele and Aronson, whose work has resulted in the notion of a ‘stereotype threat'. Put simply, when learners are directly faced with a stereotype about the cultural or socioeconomic group that they belong to and the notions of intelligence attached to such a stereotype, the pressure that this produces results in performance suffering. This is not such a new notion. Remember the 1968 work by Rosenthal and Jacobson entitled Pygmalion in the Classroom, which considered the effects of teacher expectations on student performance. As a learner, feeling that your answers are wrong, or are being ignored could lead to significant issues for the learner around their own identities in the classroom.
So errors, or mistakes, can be central to learning, if allowed. That means the effectiveness of mistakes or errors as a learning process depends upon how a teacher handles mistakes within the learning cycle (Donaldson 1978).
The dangers of rewards
This is where many educationalists have highlighted the danger of using a rewards system with learners simply because of the impact that not gaining a reward can have. Learners are very perceptive - they often know where they stand in terms of attainment in a class, indeed my own research as a PGCE student showed that learners could rank the pupils in a class blindly as accurately as the teacher could using class records. Often a rewards system can simply enhance and externalise this for them. In other words, the ‘right' or ‘correct' answers are rewarded while mistakes are often not. And yet, the deeper learning in a lesson often comes from unpacking and exploring the myths and errors made. For learners these experiences of what is right and what is wrong often become embedded.
I remember learning French at the age of 10 and being reprimanded publically in front of the class for being ‘a fool' because, in a dictation exercise, I had spelt Paris as ‘Paree'. Simply put, the error had occurred because this was how I had heard the city being pronounced in the dictation and therefore I had spelt it phonetically. Now I know that it was an error - but was it such a bad error? After all I did learn from it. I've never forgotten than incident, I've never forgotten the teacher; I can even see the weather outside the window and smell the classroom, the chalkboard, and the wooden desks. So, at the end of the day I learnt from that mistake. Although in this case the received curriculum was not simply about how to spell Paris but also how I felt when made to feel stupid in front of my peers.
Using open questions
Where we see good practice teachers often pick up on mistakes made in class and use open, rather than closed, questioning to explore where misconceptions or misunderstanding might have arisen. This immediate checking, or opening up of a dialogue around the issue, provides the space to explore understanding especially around factual misunderstanding. Using open questions in this situation can often be beneficial and as a young teacher myself I used to remind myself of the open questions to ask through the famous Kipling poem that beings:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
As these questions are so open they can allow an exploration of issues that need to be unpacked with learners in terms of their understanding of key concepts and issues. What is biomass? Why is wood a biomass? Why might biomass be considered a renewable energy? How do we define renewable energy? This questioning should take place more immediately within the classroom context and the activity being undertaken. What is more, this more open form of questioning would support Bloom's taxonomy in that it promotes deeper exploration, evaluation and criticality rather than simple factual recall. Which we know is essential for learners in terms of more critical and independent thought.
Research is starting to show, though, that it is when a learner reflects and connects at a later stage, maybe in the learning environment, or elsewhere, that cognitive reflection can take place and embed still deeper learning. Sometimes this is simply where a connection can be made to experience and life events, for example, seeing a news item around renewable forms of energy. Once again, the use of debriefing processes, including the errors involved, is a useful strategy here. Pupils can even use the questions above to reflect upon their own learning and to identify next steps. There is little use in getting eight out of 10 and being pleased with a good score if you are unsure about what happened to the other two marks. Those two marks presumably being errors or mistakes, whether these are technically, factually or simply through omission. Learning is not always immediate and can take time to embed.
Finally, it is worth considering that over the longer timescale there is deeper, higher-order thinking that can develop over a time span of lifelong learning. In my early forties I continue to return to the messages about life in novels such as To Kill a Mocking Bird or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. Often these novels can allow for cross-curricular work that allows learners to explore far more complex misconceptions and myths about life, society and community. These issues often take far longer to explore and unpack as they are tied up so deeply with values, attitudes and beliefs. However, as life experiences take us through a series of ups and downs, successes and failures, they can be an important basis for reflection. We all need to accept that mistakes are part of life's rich tapestry and that we need to accept and learn from them rather than allowing them to become a burden for us to carry.
To end we return to Eisner (1996:6) who completes the quotation at the start of the article by stating that ‘to bring about significant changes in schools requires, among other things, changing the images that teachers hold of their work.' We need to remind ourselves from time to time that teaching is a complex art form. None of us are perfect; we all make ‘mistakes' on different levels. We are human after all. Maybe we simply need to remind ourselves to take more time out to use these as active learning experiences in the classroom to aid deeper cognitive development among our learners, and indeed ourselves. We all make mistakes, a fundamental one being that we do not always see errors as the building blocks of the learning process. Be brave! Next time you pick up on an error or mistake in class think about stopping and taking the time to explore and unpack the reasoning behind the answer. In a safe learning environment where active and deep thinking is encouraged this can only lead to positive outcomes.
Claire Whewell is director of learning and teaching at the Stirling Institute of Education, University of Stirling
Further reading
•Carnell, E and Lodge, C (2002) Supporting Effective Learning, Paul Chapman Publishing: London
•Donaldson, M (1978) Children’s Minds, Fontana Press: London
•Eisner, EW (1996) Cognition and Curriculum Reconsidered, Paul Chapman Publishing: London
•Gladwell, M (2009) What the Dog Saw Penguin: London
•Thurston, A, Merrell, C, Tymms, P and Topping, KJ (2010) ‘Implementation Processes and Reading Attainment Outcomes from a Cluster-Randomized Trial of Paired Reading’ paper presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Gathering, Denver, CO, USA, 30 April-4 May 2010
Developing independent A level learners
Could cooperative learning structures encourage students to be more engaged, active and independent in their learning? Rebecca Harle and Hugh Dunford wanted to find out...
The Duchess’s Community High School is a successful 13-18 mixed fully comprehensive specialist school situated in Alnwick, Northumberland, which has 1,150 students on roll. Ofsted described the school as ‘good and improving with outstanding features’. Attainment on entry for the Year 9 cohort indicates that our students arrive with above-average numeracy skills but with only average literacy skills. Boys in particular seem to have lower than average scores in writing.
As a school we have participated in various action research projects. The growth of learning and teaching action research activities across the school has focused on the ‘classroom experience’ and ‘school experience’. We are currently involved in Phase 4 of the Campaign for Learning’s Learning to Learn in Schools project, which has involved three years of action research undertaken by several members of staff across different subject areas.
During the first two years of the project we focused on developing cooperative learning strategies, which we hoped would encourage greater reflection, resourcefulness and increased social interaction during lessons (for more information see Maitland and Murphy, 2009). We found that for group work to be truly cooperative and collaborative it was important that students were actively involved in the learning process, ie collaboration not just co-location.
In year three we were interested in developing this further, but this time specifically looking at the impact that collaborative group work and developing independence can have on the sixth form. We wanted to challenge perceived notions of sixth form teaching and learning and did not want students to be passive recipients but actively engaged in their learning. We also wanted to further develop our roles as teachers. We did not want to be didactic in our approach, but instead wanted to facilitate the learning process, encouraging students to be metacognitively aware and learn from one another. The 14-19 agenda reinforces this and personal learning and thinking skills (PLTS) and the 5Rs (for more information see issue 29 of Learning and Teaching Update) highlight that we need to focus on developing transferable skills. All of these skills are needed for the success of post-16 study.
What we wanted to discover through our action research project was whether using a range of cooperative learning structures and a detailed course overview would encourage our students to be more engaged, active and independent in their learning.
The project:
We selected two Year 13 classes: one law and one English literature. We chose these for a number of reasons. Firstly they would follow on from the first two years of research; also, there was a concern that sixth formers expected – and often received – largely didactic rather than enquiry-based or student-centred teaching; and finally we felt that our separate classes would respond positively to the research.
What we did:
Ground rules for talk:
We both introduced our groups to talk rules. These consisted of a range of sentence starters designed to improve students’ range of social graces and engagement during paired or group work: how to build on someone’s point; giving reasons for answers; summative skills; involving the less confident and so on. Talk rules were introduced and revisited three or four times over the course of the year. Students were given A4 sheets with sentence starters and asked in groups to consider their relevance and use. For example: ‘I think… because… What do we think we’ve agreed…? Does anyone want to add anything…? What are your reasons?’ In subsequent group work these sentence starters were either displayed on the whiteboard or issued as hard copies to the students. They were encouraged to use them to improve the quality of their discussion. (For more on ground rules for talk see Thomas, 2010.)
Kagan structures:
We used a range of Kagan structures with a view to varying lessons: group interview, opinion line, round robin, jigsaw, sage and scribe, stand up/sit down, give one/get one, travelling heads together, envoys. These structures were used to vary the group work, engage the students and encourage collaborative learning. For example, the group interview was a regular feature as the course was framed around students researching and then reporting back and discussing findings. Others, such as sage and scribe, were also used to similar effect. The kinaesthetic aspects of changing groups, standing, sitting, coming back to conference mode, all contributed to the students’ engagement as nothing stayed sedentary or fixed for too long. (For more information on Kagan structures see Thomas, 2009.)
Big picture work:
We also used our own versions of big picture work to offer students more responsibility for their work and enable them to chart their progress through the course. This big picture work was encouraged by the two teachers in the following ways:
•The law class used a series of course booklets which the class teacher devised in an attempt to support students to become independent enquirers and also to help them make the most of their non-contact time. The booklets were designed to support students’ learning outside the classroom and help to reinforce the big picture. Students could work through the booklets’ notes, tasks and research, ensuring that they had the relevant knowledge required for their exams. Students were given details of all assessments, homework and research tasks for a module of work in advance, allowing them to demonstrate that they were responsible enough to manage their time. They could fit their work around other commitments.
•The English class used the English department course booklet and PowerPoint presentations. The booklet was a summary of the course: AOs deadlines, exam dates, course overview, advice on approaches to A2, key vocabulary, etc.
•The PowerPoint presentations formed the basis of each lesson but were also handed out as a hard copy (three-slides-per-page format) so that the students could annotate/comment on the phases of the lessons. This was designed to include and engage students as well as acting as a cumulative record of their progress through the course – giving them an overview by reflecting back and looking forward. It also meant that absentees were able to access what they had missed.
Managing group work
In the law class the students were put into ‘law firms’ to work. The law firms were organised in terms of learning preference and ability. Each law firm was asked to develop a group identity with each having to name their law firm. During every lesson collaborative work was undertaken in the same groups. This helped the students to develop relationships and after a time, the students became more confident. They trusted one another and were able to support each other in their work. Each law firm was joined in a common goal: after each activity a degree of challenge was added and points could be collected. At the end of the module of work, the winning law firm was taken out to lunch.
In the English class, the furniture was rearranged to seat all 13 students around one set of tables. Lessons began and ended like this, allowing for introductions and plenaries. It also allowed a range of working combinations for students: whole-class, three groupings of fours and shoulder or face pairings. The conference seating plan was varied by the teacher (named places), allowing for a changing mix of abilities and personalities and avoiding habitual learning/social ruts.
After the starter/introduction of the lesson, students would divide into teams of four. These were selected by the teacher to include a range of abilities and personalities and were fixed throughout the year to encourage commitment and teamwork.
These satellite groupings were required to feed back on individually chosen pieces of research. Groups were required to listen, maintain eye contact and ask questions. The speaker then distributed notes on what had just been explained and the rest of the group highlighted two or three key points to remember.
At the end of this process groups changed to pairs to report back and extend their range of points. Then the groups returned to conference mode to share one key point with the whole class. This way the exchange of views and information was maximised.
Student voice
In order to find out what the students thought about the group work and activities, we devised a questionnaire which included four main sections for students to comment on: the range of groups and pairs; the range of Kagan structures; the big picture and making lesson sequence explicit; and talk rules. Each of these sections was subdivided into three separate areas: ‘This engages me in my learning’; ‘This enables me to actively participate in my learning’; ‘Explain your choice and give examples.’ There was an extra section at the end of the form to provide us with feedback/pupil voice: ‘Are there any other ways we could design and manage our lessons to help you feel more engaged and more actively participating in your learning?’ We also gave the students a PMI (plus, minus, interesting) form to fill in.
It was clear from all the feedback that we received that A-level students from both groups valued the interplay of security from clear targets and feedback and the challenge of interesting and varied learning opportunities. What is particularly relevant, given the focus on talk rules and new structures for interaction in the classroom, is the value that student place on positive relationships, both with their peers and the teacher.
What will we do next time?
Based on our experiences over the last year and the results of the feedback from the students we will:
•use group work again, starting earlier and with more regular and explicit reference to talk rules. Continue to select student groups with an eye to ability and dynamics but also change groups each term. We will provide explicit reasons for group work as opposed to a didactic approach by the teacher
•use a wider range of Kagan structures right from the beginning of the year to embed the approach and avoid students feeling awkward about kinaesthetic styles of learning.
•make big picture a more regular, explicit feature throughout the year, manifested in different ways (eg placemat, front of files, need to know lists). Develop the use of specific words/phrases from AOs for students to include in their responses and include this to inform student talk, making it specific to the topic
•make talk rules part of the induction for the Year 12 course and review it in Year 13. Develop subject-specific talk rules and sentence starters on cards available on tables/smartboard for students to refer to and incorporate in their discussions. We will provide more opportunities for students to reflect on successes and areas for improvement and create specific roles for group members – particularly to observe group talk dynamics and comment on these.
References
Gill Maitland and Diane Murphy (2009) ‘Learning to Cooperate’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 22
Maurice Galton (2008) ‘Working in Groups: An Underused Strategy’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 11
Ulrike Thomas (2010) ‘Ground Rules for Talk’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 37
Ulrike Thomas (2009) ‘Kagan Structures in cooperative learning’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 26
The Duchess’s Community High School is a successful 13-18 mixed fully comprehensive specialist school situated in Alnwick, Northumberland, which has 1,150 students on roll. Ofsted described the school as ‘good and improving with outstanding features’. Attainment on entry for the Year 9 cohort indicates that our students arrive with above-average numeracy skills but with only average literacy skills. Boys in particular seem to have lower than average scores in writing.
As a school we have participated in various action research projects. The growth of learning and teaching action research activities across the school has focused on the ‘classroom experience’ and ‘school experience’. We are currently involved in Phase 4 of the Campaign for Learning’s Learning to Learn in Schools project, which has involved three years of action research undertaken by several members of staff across different subject areas.
During the first two years of the project we focused on developing cooperative learning strategies, which we hoped would encourage greater reflection, resourcefulness and increased social interaction during lessons (for more information see Maitland and Murphy, 2009). We found that for group work to be truly cooperative and collaborative it was important that students were actively involved in the learning process, ie collaboration not just co-location.
In year three we were interested in developing this further, but this time specifically looking at the impact that collaborative group work and developing independence can have on the sixth form. We wanted to challenge perceived notions of sixth form teaching and learning and did not want students to be passive recipients but actively engaged in their learning. We also wanted to further develop our roles as teachers. We did not want to be didactic in our approach, but instead wanted to facilitate the learning process, encouraging students to be metacognitively aware and learn from one another. The 14-19 agenda reinforces this and personal learning and thinking skills (PLTS) and the 5Rs (for more information see issue 29 of Learning and Teaching Update) highlight that we need to focus on developing transferable skills. All of these skills are needed for the success of post-16 study.
What we wanted to discover through our action research project was whether using a range of cooperative learning structures and a detailed course overview would encourage our students to be more engaged, active and independent in their learning.
The project:
We selected two Year 13 classes: one law and one English literature. We chose these for a number of reasons. Firstly they would follow on from the first two years of research; also, there was a concern that sixth formers expected – and often received – largely didactic rather than enquiry-based or student-centred teaching; and finally we felt that our separate classes would respond positively to the research.
What we did:
Ground rules for talk:
We both introduced our groups to talk rules. These consisted of a range of sentence starters designed to improve students’ range of social graces and engagement during paired or group work: how to build on someone’s point; giving reasons for answers; summative skills; involving the less confident and so on. Talk rules were introduced and revisited three or four times over the course of the year. Students were given A4 sheets with sentence starters and asked in groups to consider their relevance and use. For example: ‘I think… because… What do we think we’ve agreed…? Does anyone want to add anything…? What are your reasons?’ In subsequent group work these sentence starters were either displayed on the whiteboard or issued as hard copies to the students. They were encouraged to use them to improve the quality of their discussion. (For more on ground rules for talk see Thomas, 2010.)
Kagan structures:
We used a range of Kagan structures with a view to varying lessons: group interview, opinion line, round robin, jigsaw, sage and scribe, stand up/sit down, give one/get one, travelling heads together, envoys. These structures were used to vary the group work, engage the students and encourage collaborative learning. For example, the group interview was a regular feature as the course was framed around students researching and then reporting back and discussing findings. Others, such as sage and scribe, were also used to similar effect. The kinaesthetic aspects of changing groups, standing, sitting, coming back to conference mode, all contributed to the students’ engagement as nothing stayed sedentary or fixed for too long. (For more information on Kagan structures see Thomas, 2009.)
Big picture work:
We also used our own versions of big picture work to offer students more responsibility for their work and enable them to chart their progress through the course. This big picture work was encouraged by the two teachers in the following ways:
•The law class used a series of course booklets which the class teacher devised in an attempt to support students to become independent enquirers and also to help them make the most of their non-contact time. The booklets were designed to support students’ learning outside the classroom and help to reinforce the big picture. Students could work through the booklets’ notes, tasks and research, ensuring that they had the relevant knowledge required for their exams. Students were given details of all assessments, homework and research tasks for a module of work in advance, allowing them to demonstrate that they were responsible enough to manage their time. They could fit their work around other commitments.
•The English class used the English department course booklet and PowerPoint presentations. The booklet was a summary of the course: AOs deadlines, exam dates, course overview, advice on approaches to A2, key vocabulary, etc.
•The PowerPoint presentations formed the basis of each lesson but were also handed out as a hard copy (three-slides-per-page format) so that the students could annotate/comment on the phases of the lessons. This was designed to include and engage students as well as acting as a cumulative record of their progress through the course – giving them an overview by reflecting back and looking forward. It also meant that absentees were able to access what they had missed.
Managing group work
In the law class the students were put into ‘law firms’ to work. The law firms were organised in terms of learning preference and ability. Each law firm was asked to develop a group identity with each having to name their law firm. During every lesson collaborative work was undertaken in the same groups. This helped the students to develop relationships and after a time, the students became more confident. They trusted one another and were able to support each other in their work. Each law firm was joined in a common goal: after each activity a degree of challenge was added and points could be collected. At the end of the module of work, the winning law firm was taken out to lunch.
In the English class, the furniture was rearranged to seat all 13 students around one set of tables. Lessons began and ended like this, allowing for introductions and plenaries. It also allowed a range of working combinations for students: whole-class, three groupings of fours and shoulder or face pairings. The conference seating plan was varied by the teacher (named places), allowing for a changing mix of abilities and personalities and avoiding habitual learning/social ruts.
After the starter/introduction of the lesson, students would divide into teams of four. These were selected by the teacher to include a range of abilities and personalities and were fixed throughout the year to encourage commitment and teamwork.
These satellite groupings were required to feed back on individually chosen pieces of research. Groups were required to listen, maintain eye contact and ask questions. The speaker then distributed notes on what had just been explained and the rest of the group highlighted two or three key points to remember.
At the end of this process groups changed to pairs to report back and extend their range of points. Then the groups returned to conference mode to share one key point with the whole class. This way the exchange of views and information was maximised.
Student voice
In order to find out what the students thought about the group work and activities, we devised a questionnaire which included four main sections for students to comment on: the range of groups and pairs; the range of Kagan structures; the big picture and making lesson sequence explicit; and talk rules. Each of these sections was subdivided into three separate areas: ‘This engages me in my learning’; ‘This enables me to actively participate in my learning’; ‘Explain your choice and give examples.’ There was an extra section at the end of the form to provide us with feedback/pupil voice: ‘Are there any other ways we could design and manage our lessons to help you feel more engaged and more actively participating in your learning?’ We also gave the students a PMI (plus, minus, interesting) form to fill in.
It was clear from all the feedback that we received that A-level students from both groups valued the interplay of security from clear targets and feedback and the challenge of interesting and varied learning opportunities. What is particularly relevant, given the focus on talk rules and new structures for interaction in the classroom, is the value that student place on positive relationships, both with their peers and the teacher.
What will we do next time?
Based on our experiences over the last year and the results of the feedback from the students we will:
•use group work again, starting earlier and with more regular and explicit reference to talk rules. Continue to select student groups with an eye to ability and dynamics but also change groups each term. We will provide explicit reasons for group work as opposed to a didactic approach by the teacher
•use a wider range of Kagan structures right from the beginning of the year to embed the approach and avoid students feeling awkward about kinaesthetic styles of learning.
•make big picture a more regular, explicit feature throughout the year, manifested in different ways (eg placemat, front of files, need to know lists). Develop the use of specific words/phrases from AOs for students to include in their responses and include this to inform student talk, making it specific to the topic
•make talk rules part of the induction for the Year 12 course and review it in Year 13. Develop subject-specific talk rules and sentence starters on cards available on tables/smartboard for students to refer to and incorporate in their discussions. We will provide more opportunities for students to reflect on successes and areas for improvement and create specific roles for group members – particularly to observe group talk dynamics and comment on these.
References
Gill Maitland and Diane Murphy (2009) ‘Learning to Cooperate’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 22
Maurice Galton (2008) ‘Working in Groups: An Underused Strategy’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 11
Ulrike Thomas (2010) ‘Ground Rules for Talk’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 37
Ulrike Thomas (2009) ‘Kagan Structures in cooperative learning’, Learning and Teaching Update, Issue 26
Quick and easy idea for encouraging independent thought
Follow the link below to a quick 3 minute video of a useful technique to encourage more independent thought...just get past the cheesy intro music and it's all good...
TELL meeting ideas about independent learning
Ideas from Charlotte Hawker:
Students teach each other
1) Give students section of text/information/key ideas/processes that they need to understand
2) Assign them each one specific part of the process/text/information that they need to teach themselves by turning it into their own words/own explanation
3) Next, everyone tours around the room in search of other pieces of the puzzle. So, 2 students meet up and teach each other their bit of information - no copying from books! They must explain and teach each other.
4) Once this has happened, the students walk onto the next person where they will then explain and teach both pieces of information to each other, thereby collecting double the amount of information with each person they meet until they have the entire piece of information/process complete.
Ideas from Becca Jones:
Students acting as “experts” on exam paper questions:
Give students a number and a letter
Group in letter groupings (i.e. all A’s together) and work through an exam question (or a few short answer questions), ensure that all group member are confident with the question and with the solution
Re-group into numbers groupings (i.e. all 1’s together) and each student takes it in turns to teach the others in the group how to do their question
“Mystery” type problems:
Students work in small groups
Each student is given some information which feeds into one big problem (encourage verbal contribution of their information rather than just putting all information on the desk!)
Student’s work as a group to solve the problem.
Students teach each other
1) Give students section of text/information/key ideas/processes that they need to understand
2) Assign them each one specific part of the process/text/information that they need to teach themselves by turning it into their own words/own explanation
3) Next, everyone tours around the room in search of other pieces of the puzzle. So, 2 students meet up and teach each other their bit of information - no copying from books! They must explain and teach each other.
4) Once this has happened, the students walk onto the next person where they will then explain and teach both pieces of information to each other, thereby collecting double the amount of information with each person they meet until they have the entire piece of information/process complete.
Ideas from Becca Jones:
Students acting as “experts” on exam paper questions:
Give students a number and a letter
Group in letter groupings (i.e. all A’s together) and work through an exam question (or a few short answer questions), ensure that all group member are confident with the question and with the solution
Re-group into numbers groupings (i.e. all 1’s together) and each student takes it in turns to teach the others in the group how to do their question
“Mystery” type problems:
Students work in small groups
Each student is given some information which feeds into one big problem (encourage verbal contribution of their information rather than just putting all information on the desk!)
Student’s work as a group to solve the problem.
Ideas from Judy Brandham-Carter:
ACCESS FM = Aesthetics, Cost, Customer, Environment, Safety, Size, Function, Material. A strategy to structure and support independent analysis of products.
I used this strategy with a yr 9 mid set textiles group to carry out a product analysis using a bag / container. This was my first lesson with the group, and I had a seating plan based on behaviour and avoiding placing certain students together.
I explained the ACCESS FM strategy which was already printed in the student booklets, I then place them into grps of 4 based mainly on where they were sitting. I used my collection of bags and students chose the one by a lucky dip of choosing one from a big bag. In this way students didn’t choose a bag they liked or one they were familiar with i.e their own pencil case/school bag. So students had to think more about a product they were unfamiliar with. Students did work well in the groups and all took part in discussing points, but when I marked their work I did find that some of the boys had written down scant information although had contributed well to the discussion and some of the girls had written down far more detailed information.
Thursday 12 September 2013
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